Takashi Miike is making a vampire Yakuza movie

With 93 credits and counting, Miike Takashi is one of the most prolific directors not only in his native Japan, but probably the world. Miike has been funding his bizarre passion projectsby directing teenybopper flicks and yakuza potboilers since the early ’90s, making it difficult for the uninitiated to distinguish genre masterpieces like Auditionand Ichi The Killerfrom direct-to-video trash.

Recently Miike has been making a bid for legitimacy with mainstream hits like the video-game adaptation Ace Attorney and dignified dramas like Hara-Kiri: Death Of A Samurai. But for his newest project, Yakuza Apocalypse: The Great War Of The Underworld, Miike is returning to his exploitation roots. Production began last week on the film, about a yakuza kingpin who has become legendary for his ability to survive any assassination attempt. That’s because he’s a vampire, as mob underling Kageyama (Hayato Ichihara) discovers after being bitten by his badly wounded boss. Kageyama is none too happy with the transformation, so he goes on a (probably excessively bloody) quest for revenge.